


we love and we hope that it holds

by cherylbombshells



Category: Euphoria (TV 2019)
Genre: F/F, Hurt/Comfort, aka the good stuff, and angsty one-sided pining, another post finale fic, canon typical talk of addiciton and drug use, lexi is the best friend anyone could ask for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 15:08:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20194270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherylbombshells/pseuds/cherylbombshells
Summary: Following Cassie's advice, Lexi goes to Rue's house to tell her how she feels.





	we love and we hope that it holds

The winter formal gets boring fast, so when Maddy comes back to the table with tears in her eyes and says she’s ready to leave, neither Cassie or Lexi argue. 

The car ride home is a lot more sombre and quiet than the ride to the dance had been, mostly because Maddy herself is, but the mood doesn’t change much once she’s gone, either. 

Cassie’s as quiet as she has been since her doctor’s appointment, which is understandable, and Lexi… Well, Lexi’s got a lot on her mind, too.

“Can you drop me off at Rue’s?” she requests in a lazy voice when they’re half way home, her eyes watching houses blur by as her sister’s earlier words continue to play out on a loop in her head. 

_ Then go and do whoever the fuck you want._

She doesn’t hear Cassie’s reply, but she must agree because before she knows it, the car is pulling up outside a familiar house and Lexi wastes no time stumbling out of the passenger side door and almost tripping up the curb.

“Hey, Drunky,” the blonde calls out the open door. She leans over the center console and ducks her head so she can see her little sister past the roof of her car. “Text me if you need a ride home, okay? Don’t walk.”

Lexi nods and taps her temple twice. _ Good thinking_, she says in her head, but she doesn’t think the words actually make it out of her mouth.

Instead, she just shuts the door and takes a step back, watching Cassie drive away until their mother’s car disappears around the corner, and then she turns her gaze up towards the house she spent so much of her childhood in.

She has no idea how long she stands on the Bennetts’ front lawn for, staring at their front door as she tries to remember everything she came here to say to her best friend - everything she’s wanted to say to her for years - but once she’s gone over her speech a few times, she nods resolutely and makes her way over towards the back of the house. 

It’s dark out, but the street lights provide just enough glow for Lexi to find her way; she’s not as stealthy as she wants to be, but she gets to Rue’s window without falling on her face, so she considers that a victory.

It reminds her of nights from before - before Jules and Rue’s overdose, before Rue started spending less and less time with her because she wasn’t interested in numbing her problems with drugs; before she stopped being Rue’s best friend, even though Rue never stopped being hers. 

Lexi shakes the memories off and knocks on the window, lightly at first, because she’s nothing if not polite, even when drunk, and then knocks harder when she doesn’t get an answer in a timely manner.

She knows Rue is home, because she almost tripped over her bike on her way back here, so when she doesn’t see or hear any sign of movement from inside after a few minutes, she pulls out her phone and sends a text asking her if she’s awake.

And when she almost falls asleep waiting for a reply, Lexi says _ fuck it _ and checks to see if the window is unlocked and finds that it is. 

“Very dangerous, Rue,” she drunkenly mumbles to herself as she pushes the window panel up just enough for her to fit through it. 

Getting in proves to be more difficult than Lexi anticipated, with her dress and the alcohol messing with her coordination, and it doesn’t occur to her until she’s half way through that Jules might be over and that she might just be climbing in on something she doesn’t think her drunk lovesick heart could take. 

But before the concern even has a chance to fully form, she’s tumbling through the window and landing on the floor on the other side with a loud _ thud _ and a groan.

The fact that Rue doesn’t wake up from all the noise is Lexi’s first hint that something’s wrong. The second is the fact that Rue is laying on top of the covers, flat on her back and unmoving.

Something’s off, Lexi can feel it in her bones, and when she finally gets up onto shaky legs and spots the debit card and book tossed aside on the bed beside Rue, she immediately knows what it is. 

The realization is like a bucket of ice water to the face, and it sobers her up immediately. 

“Rue?” Lexi calls out softly, as if that’s going to stir the other girl when all the other noise hasn’t yet. She takes a tentative step forward, heart squeezing in her chest at the growing fear of what she’ll find when she reaches the bed. “Rue?” she tries again, voice trembling, and not from alcohol. 

“J-Jules?” Rue croaks out, still not moving at all. 

The sudden reply almost makes Lexi jump out of her skin, but the relief she feels is overwhelming as she rushes the rest of the way to Rue’s bedside. 

“Rue,” she says for the third time, perching herself on the edge of the bed beside her best friend and carefully reaching out to brush the hair out of her face. “Rue, can you hear me?”

“Jules?” is all Rue says again, but as her eyes flutter open and search for her, Lexi doesn’t mind the mistake at all. 

“It’s Lexi,” she tells her gently, apologetically, brushing her fingers against Rue’s cheek as her other hand checks for her pulse; it’s slowed down, but not too alarming - a sharp contrast to the way her own heart feels like it’s beating out of her chest. “Are you okay? What happened? What did you take?”

“Jules,” Rue repeats once again, but the way her face crumbles tells Lexi it’s not confusion this time. “Left.”

Lexi doesn’t know exactly what Rue means or what went down with Jules after they left the formal - whatever it was, it obviously wasn’t good - but she knows she’s not going to get the details out of the other girl tonight.

Tonight, all Lexi can do for Rue is stay with her, so she does.

(Lexi would never leave Rue.)

She turns the bedside lamp on and it gives her just enough light to find the rest of Rue’s drugs in a baggie on the floor. Lexi snatches them up and quietly makes her way out of the bedroom and towards the bathroom, carefully avoiding the spots on the floor that she knows creak.

Lexi makes it to the bathroom without waking Gia or Leslie - which is quite the feat, considering how completely ungraceful she feels; her body hasn’t quite sobered up as quickly as her brain has - and she flushes Rue’s stash quickly before getting a bunch of tissues and wetting them so she can clean the other girl’s makeup off.

Once she’s securely back in Rue’s room, with the door closed behind her, Lexi goes about washing Rue’s face the best she can without her cooperation, gently responding to every nonsensical thing her best friend mutters about Jules and whatever went down tonight, until Rue looks more like herself again. 

“Much better,” Lexi decides when she’s got her best friend’s face bare.

Rue has never been one to like makeup all that much; she’ll wear it when it feels needed or appropriate, or when her mother makes her, but she’s always preferred wearing as little as possible, if not none at all. 

Her clothing choices have always been similar - comfort over style - so it’s not a surprise to see that the only thing Rue did before getting high was change out of the pretty, but totally not _ Her_, dress she’d worn to the dance and into sweats and her father’s old hoodie.

Lexi doesn’t even think to change out of her own dress as she pulls Rue’s lanky and relaxed body further up the bed until her head meets her pillows, and then she rolls her over onto her side so she won’t choke on her vomit or something.

She doesn’t know a lot about hard drugs, other than what she learned about overdoses and chances of surviving them, back when she spent hours researching after Rue’s, but she figures it’s better to be safe than sorry. 

As she settles onto the bed beside the other girl, Lexi suddenly realizes how tired she is herself, as the effects of the alcohol start to settle now that the adrenaline has worn off and she’s slowed down again. 

Her eyelids start to feel heavy after a few minutes, but she fights to keep them open; she has to stay awake to watch over Rue, to make sure she makes it through the night. 

She has no idea what she’s taken or how much, and if she was a stronger person, she would have woken Leslie up by now, but she’s not sure if Rue would forgive her for that, and she’s enabled Rue’s addiction for that same reason a few times now, so what’s one more?

(Lexi isn’t as selfless as people think.)

She pulls out her phone in an attempt to keep herself awake, scrolling through her Instagram feed and liking people’s pictures from the winter formal before she gets bored and opens up Candy Crush. 

“Where’s Jules?” Rue eventually whimpers, not for the first time, into the dark sometime later.

Lexi’s answer is the same as every other time she asked before; “I don’t know,” she tells her gently, allowing the other girl to roll over and place her head in her lap.

She wishes she did know, even considers texting the blonde to ask, but ultimately decides to just wait until morning to get the story from Rue herself. 

Wherever Jules is, it isn’t here with Rue. 

But Lexi’s here, like she always has been, in whatever way Rue will let her. 

She just wishes that could be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really in love with these two and want to write novels for them, but for now, a shot one-shot will have to do.


End file.
